Purchase the Higgins History trilogy
The Higgins History trilogy is available for purchase on Amazon in Paperback or for Kindle. You can buy each book separately or as a complete set.
Claire Higgins Owen's Higgins History trilogy delves into the lives of three generations of Irish-Australian women, each facing unique challenges across historical periods.
The series begins with Someone’s Daughter, which follows an Irish girl’s immigration to Australia, exploring cultural displacement and family bonds.
Someone’s Sister continues the family saga with a focus on the pioneering spirit and the struggles of adapting to new societal norms.
Finally, Someone’s Aunt reflects on the Federation era, capturing personal and national identity shifts.
Each book offers a lens into Australia's evolving social history through a deeply personal narrative.
The Higgins History trilogy is available for purchase on Amazon in Paperback or for Kindle. You can buy each book separately or as a complete set.
An Irish girl tells her family's migration story
A bright and engaging young Irish girl narrates the story of her family’s migration to Australia in 1838 in search of a better life. Catherine’s delightful, entertaining and, at times, poignant memoir describes her childhood in a rural village, the journey from Cork to Sydney, and the establishment of a home in the early years of Melbourne. Young Catherine is very observant, with great enthusiasm for facts and figures, and her story provides a fascinating glimpse into everyday life for working-class people at a time of great social upheaval.
This is biographical fiction – family history brought to life – for Catherine was the author’s great-great-great-aunt, and the memoir weaves together recorded facts about real people and actual events, setting them against a backdrop drawn from contemporary documents and publications.
Catherine’s story helps to address the lack of female voices in the historical narrative, for while her father and brother are acknowledged in Port Phillip records as pioneers, Catherine and her mother didn’t rate so much as a mention. In a photographic collage showing Victoria’s explorers and early colonists, Catherine’s father was one of more than 700 men portrayed – but not a single woman was included.
Buy on Amazon Available in Paperback and KindleA colonial girl tells her family's pioneering story
In the second book of the trilogy, Ellen Higgins – the first Australian-born member of her family – takes up the family story where her aunt Catherine left off. Tales about Ellen’s childhood in Colonial Melbourne, her boarding-school education and the tragic deaths of two little brothers are set against a backdrop of her family’s increasing prosperity.
When Ellen reaches adulthood, the scene changes to rural Victoria, where her family takes up a selection not far from the notorious Kelly family’s.
Ellen’s memoir brings early Melbourne to life and provides a fascinating window into the lives of the pioneers who struggled to make a living from the land in north-east Victoria.
Buy on Amazon Available in Paperback and KindleA federation woman tells her family's story
The concluding book of the trilogy is narrated by Frances Higgins, who inherits her aunt Ellen’s memoir in the 1920s but puts off continuing the family story until 60 years later, when she has much to look back and reflect upon. Frances begins with the story of her mother’s family who, like the Higginses, were from Ireland. Here any similarity ends, for this side of the family were landed gentry, and Protestants at that.
Frances herself had an idyllic childhood in the days of Federation, growing up in a large and happy family in bayside Melbourne – where the boys took up sailing with enthusiasm, while Fran and her sister became accomplished swimmers and lifesavers.
Frances’ memoir tells of her promotion from teacher to headmistress and schools inspector, but along the way there are more tales of pioneering – this time in the Victorian Mallee – not to mention wartime, love and loss. In her nineties, Frances reflects upon the differences between the lives of women who, like her, ended up pursuing a career, and those who married and had children.
Buy on Amazon Available in Paperback and KindleI grew up in bayside Melbourne, Australia, close to my Higgins relatives, and was always very interested in my father’s research into our Irish forebears.
I became a teacher of secondary mathematics, but an interest in the computers that were revolutionizing word processing and graphics somehow diverted me into the publishing industry. I worked as an editor but also wrote mathematical storybooks and teacher’s notes.
Meanwhile, I had caught the genealogy bug, but found it challenging to present family history in a way that was engaging while making it clear where the “facts” had come from. It was during my state’s lengthy Covid lockdown that I had a lightbulb moment – historical fiction!
And so my interests in mathematics, writing, and genealogy have come together to create the Higgins History trilogy. First up is a fictional memoir by my great-great-great aunt, and I have taken the liberty of endowing her with a great love for facts and figures.